An Immortal. Cursed during the Passion.

Renee slept poorly that night.

Not that she expected to sleep well. The pickaxe rested beside the bed, wrapped in cloth, but its presence was like a heart beating in another room, distant yet unmistakable. She had lain down still wearing damp clothes, too exhausted to change them, and fatigue overcame her before she could process everything that had happened.

Sleep came like a dark tide, pulling her down to a place where time had no form.

She was in Jerusalem.

Not the Jerusalem she knew from books, from black-and-white images, from history classes. This was a living city, sunny, dusty. The streets were narrow and winding, the yellowish stone houses piled on top of each other, and the air smelled of spices, sweat, and animal dung. The sun beat down fiercely, and shade was a scarce commodity.

Renee was not in her body. Or perhaps she was, but in a way she could not control. She was a spectator, an invisible presence floating above the streets, watching the crowd that had gathered near one of the city gates.

She saw the man.

He was young, with skin darkened by the sun, strong arms and calloused hands, hands that worked with leather, with tools, with the earth. He wore a simple, dirty tunic, and his eyes, dark and tired, watched the procession with an expression Renee could not decipher. It was not fury, not sadness, not compassion. It was impatience, as if he were seeing something he had seen many times before and no longer cared about.

The procession passed. And then Renee saw the man carrying the beam.

He was dark-skinned, bronzed by the sun, his body marked by hard labor that came from afar. His arms were strong, muscular, but now they were covered in blood and sweat, and the ropes binding his wrists to the wood had cut into his skin, leaving deep red grooves. His back was bare, and the flesh was lacerated by flagellation, open stripes running from his shoulders to the lower part of his back, each one a testament to a whip that had shown no mercy. The skin around the wounds was swollen, purple, and blood flowed in thick streams, running down his legs and mixing with the dust of the ground.

Over his shoulders hung a purple robe, torn and stained with blood, which the soldiers had placed on him as mockery, a trophy of scorn that now weighed upon his open wounds, sticking to his flesh like a second skin. The fabric, once noble, was now just a rag soaked in sweat and blood, and each movement of the man made it cling and tear the skin anew, in an endless cycle of pain.

His face was swollen, one eye nearly closed by a dark bruise, and blood flowed from a deep wound on his forehead, where a crown of thorns had been pressed. The thorns were still there, some broken, others embedded in the flesh, and blood ran down his face like red tears.

But it was his eyes that Renee could not forget. They were full of pain. Not physical pain, though that was immense, but a deeper pain, a pain that seemed to come from somewhere beyond the body, as if he carried not just the beam but the weight of everything that had gone wrong in the world. His eyes were red, watery, but not from tears; it was the effort of staying upright, of taking one step after another, of not falling. And yet, despite everything, despite the blood, the thorns, the torn flesh, there was something more in his eyes. Something Renee did not expect to find. It was not anger, not resentment, not even a plea for help. It was compassion. A strange, disconcerting compassion, one that seemed to say a lot. An ocean of words of comfort, even amidst agonizing silence.

It was a gaze that saw the crowd, that saw the soldiers, that saw the tanner, and instead of condemning, seemed to offer something none of them deserved. A forgiveness that had not been asked for. A grace that had not been earned.

The tanner watched, and his lips moved. His voice was harsh, impatient, and the words came out like a spit.

"Hurry up. If you are who you say you are, save yourself. I do not have all the time to wait."

The crowd around seemed to hesitate for a moment, but the fallen man, the Nazarene with compassionate eyes, lifted his gaze and met the tanner's.

For an instant, time stopped. The sun seemed to darken. The crowd fell silent. The eyes of that man, full of pain and compassion, met the tanner's, and Renee felt, even as only a spectator, the weight of that gaze. It was not anger, not judgment. It was an immense sadness, like that of someone who sees a child lose their way and can do nothing to stop it. But it was also something more, something Renee could not name. A recognition. As if he saw not just what the tanner was, but what he could have been.

And then, with a voice that was not loud but seemed to echo through the centuries, the Nazarene spoke.

"Then you shall wait. Until I return. You shall wait."

It was not a curse in the usual sense; there was no hatred in the words. It was a sentence, like that of a judge who does not condemn for pleasure but out of necessity. A consequence. And when the words were spoken, Renee saw something change in the tanner's face. A fissure opened in his expression, as if a crack had appeared in a wall he believed to be solid. His eyes, once merely impatient, were now empty. As if something inside him had died in that instant.

And then the vision shifted.

Renee was in a different place. A simple house, with stone walls and a clay roof. The tanner sat on a bench, his hands trembling, his face pale. A woman, his wife perhaps, knelt before him, holding his face, saying something Renee could not hear. The tanner shook his head, pushed her hands away, and stood.

He walked to a jar of water, plunged his face in, and when he lifted it, Renee saw his eyes in the reflection. They were no longer the same. There was something in them that had not been there before, an emptiness, an absence.

The days passed like leaves in a river. Renee watched the tanner age, but not as others age. He watched his friends die, his wife grow old and pass away, his children grow up and leave. He buried each of them, one by one, and at each funeral, his face grew a little emptier, his eyes a little deader.

She watched him travel. Watched him sit at the feet of masters in distant temples, listening to teachings that promised answers. Watched him read scrolls in libraries that no longer exist, seeking truths that always eluded him. Watched him fight in wars, kill men, watch men die, and in every battle, his expression remained the same, that of someone who no longer believes anything can change.

She watched him try to die.

The rope, the sword, the fire, the poison. Each attempt failed. His flesh closed, his skin regenerated, his heart stubbornly kept beating. Renee saw him lie down on a rock, dagger in hand, eyes fixed on the night sky, and heard him whisper words she could not distinguish. When the dagger fell from his hand, Renee saw tears roll from his eyes, not from pain, but from a weariness so deep it seemed to have consumed all hope.

And then, amid that succession of images, Renee saw something that made her hold her breath.

The tanner, already old, already tired, already empty, sat on a wooden bench in a city Renee recognized as modern but could not identify. He was motionless, eyes fixed on the horizon, and on his face there was nothing but silent waiting, as if he were waiting for time to end.

A man approached him, a man with a long beard and eyes that gleamed like liquid gold. Dwalin.

The tanner lifted his eyes and looked at the dwarf. Dwalin said something, and the tanner replied, his voice hoarse, tired. The conversation was short. Dwalin shook his head, something like disappointment on his face, and walked away.

The tanner was left alone, and then he raised his eyes, not to the horizon, but to where Renee stood. His dark eyes met hers, and Renee felt a chill run down her spine, because she knew, with absolute certainty, that he was seeing her.

He did not smile. He did not speak. He just watched her with those eyes that had seen everything, and had found nothing worth keeping.